with as best he may."

"You are doing me an injustice," said Cyprian; "for instead of my being
preoccupied with anything relating to insanity, I bring you a piece of
news which ought to delight you all. Our friend Sylvester has come back
here to-day from his long stay in the country."

The friends welcomed this announcement with shouts; for they were all
much attached to the quiet but brilliant and kindly Sylvester, whose
inward poesy shone forth in the mildest and most beauteous radiance.

"No more worthy Serapion Brother than our Sylvester could possibly
exist," said Theodore. "He is quiet and thoughtful: it is true it costs
some trouble to kindle him up to the point of clear utterance; but
probably there never was any one more susceptive of the work of other
people. Though he is a man of few words himself, one reads in his face,
in the clearest traits, the impression which the words of others
produce upon him; and when his kindliness and talent stream forth in
his looks and whole being, I feel myself more kind and more clever in
his presence--more free and more happy."

"The truth is," said Ottmar, "that Sylvester is a very remarkable man
just on that account. The poets of the present day seem all to go
storming, of set purpose, up above the level of that unpretending
modesty which ought to be considered the most marked and essential
quality of the true poet-nature; and even the better-minded among them
have need to be careful that, in the mere maintenance of their rights,
they should abstain from drawing that sword which the great majority of
them never lay out of their hands. But Sylvester goes about weaponless,
like a guileless child. We have often accused him of indolence, and
told him that, considering the wealth of his intellect, he writes too
little. But must people go on writing continually? When Sylvester sits
down and fixes some inner image into words, there is sure to be some
irresistible impulse constraining him to do so. He never writes
anything that he has not most vividly felt, and seen; and therefore he
must come amongst us as a perfect Serapion Brother."

"I have a dislike to all odd numbers," said Lothair, "except the mystic
and pleasant number seven; and I think that five Serapion Brethren
would never answer, but that six, on the other hand, would sit very
comfortably about this round table. Sylvester has arrived to-day; and
very shortly that restless, wandering spirit, Vincent, will be castin